Highest Elevation: 12,000 is where the Lake is at. We had a total elevation gain of around 1800ft

Trail Length: 8 miles officially, we made it about 7 miles on 6/28 and the full 8 today.

Trail Uses: Hiker, Biker & Horses

Degree of Difficulty: Moderate to difficult Mostly because of elevation.

Fees: None

Bathroom: Yes in the parking lot

Pets: Yes

Being in that meadow behind Torrey’s(hike details here) last weekend made me want to keep seeing more amazing views. I have had my eye on Herman Lake for a while, like 2 and half years kind of a while. At first I was too nervous I couldn’t do it and then I was so focused on getting to a certain elevation each week that I kept skipping it. I also know it is a really popular trail. It is not overly long with a reasonable climb and astonishing views from almost every part of the hike. Even starting at 7 AM, the parking lot was filling up fast and it is a big parking lot. There are signs and a bathroom where the trail starts.

The first quarter-mile is a gentle climb to the T-section with a sign listing the trail options with an arrow. Take the trail on the left.

The next mile was much steeper and rockier, the best part was when the stream came up along side the trail because it totally drowned out the noise from I 70. This is one of the steepest parts of the hike.

Nice and steep

The stream is just to the left

After this initial climb, you come out into this meadow and really if we made it no further than this point it would have been enough.

Looking ahead

Looking behind

The next 1-2 miles is through sections of pine and then beautiful meadows. It was pretty muddy from this point forward with much of the trail an actual stream itself. Last Saturday the snow was quite the obstacle, this morning more like scenery.

Good and muddy

second meadow on 6/28

Views behind

The sides were even amazing

Not one bad spot

Trail is a stream

I loved breaking out of the pines to see views like this

There were a couple of water crossings, some clearly are there normally some are only there when the snow is still crazy deep at the end of June.

When we got to the last set of pines we started the final climb up to the lake, it gets steep here, actually the most steep section of the whole hike plus it close 12,000 feet above sea level so just breathing is a work out. Last Saturday the snow was to our knees but hard packed because so many people had gone before us. We met up with a gentleman who had been to the lake and he said the snow around the lake was hit or miss, some places to your knees some places chest high. We lost the trail in here but just kept following other footprints until we saw the trail again. This morning a lot of that snow had melted. We still lost the trail but it was much easier to find again after some obstacles.

The lake is supposed just half a mile from the last set of pines. Unfortunately we didn’t make it on Saturday. It turns out Aaron was working on a decent inner ear infection and his head was to the about to explode point. We had to turn around.

The lake is just up there

Views ahead when we turned around

We could tell as we drove towards the hike Saturday morning that is had snowed in the mountains the night before. Which is kind of surprising, but it made the hike extra muddy while also making everything in sight beautiful, like frosting. I knew the trail would be crowded but I had no idea how popular it truly was, the nice thing is the path itself is mostly wide enough to pass easily so lots of people was no problem.

It turns out, I could not wait to get back and we went back this morning. We cruised up and in, the trial was completely different that last weekend with probably a third of the snow and like a bazillion more flowers. What a difference 6 days makes. We were maybe a quarter of a mile from the final trail break before lake when we turned around last Saturday. This time we went left, it is not long to the lake and there was a super small pond on the way… it is not the lake. Continue on Herman Lake is just ahead.

When we got to the lake, it was so rewarding. everywhere we looked it was spectacular. There were still snow fields all over the place but getting around them were easy. I kinda wish I we had seen it last weekend to have a good comparison.

Herman Lake

We could have been done in 3 hours both times but we actually hung around taking pictures at every turn, spending 5 hours on the trail last Saturday and just over 4 hours today. It was’t enough, there so much to see. If you are ever in this area and you can only do one hike, do this hike there is not one boring part. The whole thing was a series of ohhhhinng and ahhhing.

After the directions will be a few of my favorite pictures.

Directions: Take I70 West and just before the Eisenhower tunnel, exit at the un-named exit #218. Turn right at the end of the ramp, you will see the sign for Herman Gulch.

Highest Elevation: 11,000Ft ish (we didn’t have our watch and I can find almost nothing on this trail. I know the parking lot is at 9800 ft and I got 100 flights of stairs so 1000 ft total elevation gain)

Trail Length: 6 Miles from the parking lot right off the exit- 4 miles if you have 4 wheel drive and can go to the pull off a mile up the road.

Trail Uses: Hiker, biker, 4 wheel drive cars, horses

Degree of Difficulty: Moderate but only if you have to climb the road from the parking lot – if you drive up the road to the pull off easy

Fees: None

Bathrooms: None

Pets: Yes

Taking 2 weeks off of hiking and exercise was killer for me. honestly by week 2 I was so antsy I snuck in a few walks and some elliptical just not in shoes with backs. On my weekend off hiking I went to REI and met a shoe fitting guru. Seriously he took a look at my heels, measured my foot and simultaneously started listing all the things that happen while I hike. Like I have no flexibility at all in my feet and that I come down super hard when I walk or that my plantar fascia was screwed up. Then he proceeded to go through all the different shoes and why they wouldn’t work. He handed me a pair of Adidas trail runners in an awful mint green. I super didn’t want to like them and at first I didn’t, I walked around and my feet were coming right out. He switched up the laces and tied them a specific way > then they were HEAVEN… ugly heaven but heaven none the less. He also found me a delightful boot, it too is strangely ugly but I think I am going to test them out this weekend before I commit.

Yes I am wearing purple socks with mint green trail runners.

I picked a hike that I had written down on one of my many lists of hikes I found on some random webpage, Grizzly Gulch at just 4 miles round trip with maybe 900 ft of total elevation gain. I knew after 2 weeks of almost no exercise I needed to take it easy but I still wanted a view and supposedly this hike would take us to 11.300( I don’t think it did). But when I started to research the hike I could find almost nothing, the only thing I knew was it went to a meadow behind Torreys peak. Then I found a few trip reports that said they couldn’t find the meadow. I found pictures but no directions ….. any where. At like page 8 in a google search on my 5th combination of words I found a snowshoe with a hint of the two turns to look for. I decided at 10 PM on Friday we would risk it.

The start of the hike is along the road to Grays and Torreys which are 2- 14ers (Mountains 14,000 +ft above sea level) that are insanely popular. If you have 4-wheel drive this hike could be just 4 miles, since I didn’t know where the trail break would be I figured if we couldn’t find it we could at least hike up to the trailhead for Grays and Torreys and get 8 miles in.

At almost exactly 1 mile from the parking lot, we came to the first fork. The sign for Gray’s Peak said stay straight and then there was a small parking lot with road heading off on the right. We went right. Taking the road for 2 miles of the hike is kind of challenging only because of all the trucks heading up to Grays & Torreys and the dust clouds they create, otherwise it is surprisingly beautiful.

Go Right at Grizzly Gulch Road almost exactly 1 mile up on Stevens Gulch Road

The Grizzly Gulch Road/trail

From here the road/ trail gets much more rustic, we passed a few people camping long here and since I didn’t really know where the meadow was I went on guesses. We passed one road going right then in just a quarter of a mile we came to what I was guessing would be my second right. You come up to the fork, you will know it by 2 things. there are 2 old cabins on your left and what looks like another parking area than there is also 2 road signs, 189.1G & 189.1C…. Take 189.1C on the right and stay on it.

189.1C on the right

The cabins are on the wrong road unless you want to go to an old abandoned mine

From here it is not far and the trail has a ton of snow melt water on it. At first it wasn’t bad

It wasn’t deep until we get to an impassable part. For a second we thought about turning around, but the feet felt great and we had hardly gone anywhere so we took off our shoes deciding to cross. For the record a knee-deep snowmelt streamed F@$#ing cold

See the trail over there

In theory it sounded way easier than it actually was.

My Face Sums it up

Seriously, it took all my tough girl genes to not start crying right about here, it was so cold. I toughed it out, got to the other side and thought “I am not sure I can make it back over”.

From here we continued up the road past this lovely gentleman who was burning some fallen trees. At first I thought we went the wrong way and asked if it was ok that we hiked through, we were looking for Grizzly Gulch. He was so nice, he is literally living in heaven with the most amazing scenery all around his home. He let us hike through and told us we might find a bridge across the stream if we went along the stream little bit off the trail down on his property.

The Hardest Part

From here the trail was just a road that had some ups and downs but nothing like the first mile up. The views were breath-taking, the stream and snow melt had transformed everything into this idealized hike and even with all the clouds it was perfect! We had more fun enjoying all the views then we had in weeks! The trail was still wet in places and we crossed the stream one more time but in just 1.5 miles we got to the meadow and it was amazing!!!

The Stream

Getting closer to the Meadow

Second stream crossing

Way easier to cross and a view

The Meadow

I was so happy we found this elusive meadow, I honestly just stood there for almost a half an hour taking it all in. We could have easily have gone on ….well sort of, the next river crossing is just to right of the fence in the picture above and it was like a 4 lane road wide. My feet felt great but I didn’t want to push it in my new shoes, healing heels and really I didn’t want to feel that icy cold water again. We took our time before turning around and heading back. I know that we could have gone on and hiked to that ridge but for now I was satisfied with what we had seen!

Beautiful!

Honestly the whole way back all we could talk about was how beautiful it all was and how happy we were that we found the meadow. The other great part, we had almost the whole trail to ourselves. The only time we saw other people were when we crawled out of the trees after finding a way to cross that uncrossable part… it was a fallen tree that was super stable in front of some wicked rapids.

Rapids where we found an out to taking our shoes off

This tree was heaven-sent

It was just maybe .2 miles to the road again….. it was also right off the road on the other side.

The way back from here was even better with weather coming in, sometimes dark clouds are as good as blue sky. I honestly cannot wait to get back there again, this a gem that it seems like no one knows about or else takes a wrong turn too soon. If I was honest with myself, no one hikes it because they are all hiking Grays and Torreys, but what a miss on their part because while summiting is awesome so is a really great meadow and this is an amazing meadow.

Directions: Take I 70 to exit# 221 and go south, for the full 6 miles park in the lots there. Otherwise drive up a mile to the road fork and park there for a 4 mile hike.

I couldn’t stop turning around and watching the sky change around Torreys

My new Keens have not been kind, I am so sad because these bad boys have kept me hiking relatively pain-free for the past 2.5 years and this latest release of them have not been good. Why do they have to change these things when they are perfect? I could go from old pair to new pair with no problems the last 3 purchases. After last weekends bizarrely blistered heels I decided to take it easy all week and only walked/exercised in shoes with no backs. I know lots of people are not fans of Keens but they have been perfect for me until now. Because of the blister situation and the fact that Aaron was at sea level the just the week before this one, I picked an easy paved hike that took us above 10,000 ft but for a 10 mile walk/hike. It seemed like the perfect trade-off to me to help my feet. I really had targeted it for snowshoeing at some point but thought it might be a nice alternative for my current situation.

Looking up the paved road towards the trail head

The trail is literally right off I70 at the Bakerville exit, to the right of the road that goes to the Grays and Torreys trailhead. These are twin 14ers that I hope to climb this summer, they are incredibly popular but the road is 4 wheel drive so some people actually park where we did and hike up the road in addition to doing the hike up the mountains. In the late summer it is so popular cars are parked all long the road down to this point, think super painful crowded. I was a little embarrassed to be doing this easy paved hike instead of something like Grays.

The start of the trail

Baker Loveland Trail #60

Our trail for the day goes along I70, but up in the pines to the Loveland ski resort parking lot so we only had views of I70 once or twice through the hike. It was mostly the surrounding mountain tops and trees, which were lovely with the perfect blue sky. It was even better knowing that everyone on the front range was getting clouds and rain all day!

The 1st of 2 budge crossings

One of 2 times we actually saw I70

The trail is very nicely maintained and seemed to be mostly used by bikers. Outside of that, there was nothing special about it. It filled a need and I think it would be better as a snowshoe or cross-country ski route, well and ideally biking but I don’t do that.

There were lots of snow melt stream and waterfalls along the path to drown out the traffic noise

There was actually still a lot of snow along it and on it at times, which was surprising but kinda fun to watch the bikers try to deal with it.

Getting to Loveland ski resort was pretty anti-climatic as we came up at the end of the dirty parking lot right by a huge dumpster, close to the bend of I70 as cars are approaching the Eisenhower tunnel.

Turnaround point and Loveland Ski Resort

This was not a fun hike for me, not because the trail was paved or the views lacking, but because I was on the edge of an anxiety attack before I even got on the trail. I have been trying to manage a difficult person/situation at work and that Friday night there was an email on my crackberry that just super stressed me out. I am also so frustrated at my stupid feet and Keen for changing it up, after 2.5 years of constant hiking, I am suddenly at ground zero all over again. At just 3ish miles into the hike my feet were killing me and I literally melted down in a full-blown crying fit/tantrum. I was so mad at my work situation and dreading Monday morning. I was so mad at my feet and F#**ing Keen. I was mad that the trail was paved(even though I knew that before going)….. there were lots of other irrelevant reasons I was mad…. fortunately only Aaron got to see me break down with snot all over my face, while I made pathetic sobs and snorts. It was not a good moment.

The view a few minutes post melt down

I pretty much threw any sort of logic out the window at that point and just kept walking. Not back to the car like I should have, but onward because I was going to finish this damn trail at any cost. I am so stupid.

It took us 4 full hours to do a trail that should have only taken 2.5. When I got back to the car my heels were REALLY bad. I got home, I cleaned up and took the stupid shoes back to REI, where they told me they have been getting some rumblings about this release but nothing as bad as what I had done to myself. The worst part, they have no suggestion on what to use other than Keen because their heel structure is exactly what I need and there are no other women’s waterproof hiking shoes they know of that would be similar.

Totally cool stump that looks like an iron maiden

Unfortunately when Sunday came around, I could smell my blisters from like feet away. Monday it was so bad I didn’t want to go into work where other people could smell me too. Tuesday I made it to the Dr first thing, where they confirmed a decent infection had set in. I love my Doctor, no lectures, no outward judgement on why I didn’t just turnaround, just straight up lets treat this and get you back hiking as soon as we can. Outside the crazy amount of antibiotics I have to take for 10 days, she also said no cardio for a week or 2 and absolutely no hiking this weekend and possibly next. I can’t really put on shoes if I wanted too anyway. Right now they itch so bad it is distracting, but no more smell or pain, so yay for antibiotics.

I am wondering if any of my female hiker buddies have chronic heels issues like I do can suggest a waterproof hiking shoe or boot that they love? I need a comfy heel box, Merrill is way too small for me and while I may give Salomon another shot, those have typically been bad all around for me. I have never tried Lowe or Vasque….

The views were fantastic..my mind set not so much

Directions: Take I70 West to the Bakerville exit #221, at the end of the exit ramp, turn left. Immediately over the highway on the right will be a small parking lot and the trail head is just a little ways down the PAVED road on the right. There is a large dirt area also used for parking on the side by an old fireplace as there are only 6 spots in the paved parking area.